Favorite Color
by heavy.sighs.and.sad.goodbyes
Summary: Shane wants to get to know Mitchie a lot better after the Final Jam Jam session. But when he asks a question that hits a nerve, what will she tell him? ShanexMitchie.


_**Favorite Color**_

"Okay. I want to know a lot more about you, because, last time I remember, you lied, so…" Shane Gray was talking to Mitchie Torres after the Final Jam Jam session. All the campers were leaving the next day, and Shane really wanted to get to know Mitchie in the few hours he had.

"Hey. That's not fair at all! I told you why I lied," Mitchie reminded him, giggling. Then her giggling stopped as thoughts flashed through her mind. Her voice gets quiet and she looks away from Shane. "I wanted to tell you the truth, but I thought you'd get mad at me."

"Oh yea, cuz I didn't get mad at you when I finally found out that you were lying," Shane joked, but stopped as he saw Mitchie look away again.

"I said I was sorry. Really I am. I wanted to tell you…but I just…I just…I don't even know," she told him. Shane could hear the choked back sobs in her voice. He stopped walking. She did too, and she looked at him. Tears streaked her face and her mouth was curled into a sorrowful frown. She really was upset with herself.

If there was one thing Shane Gray couldn't stand, it was girls crying. He knew that sometimes they just did it to get their way, but he had found that Mitchie rarely cried, only when she was actually upset; which killed him that much more.

"Mitchie, please don't cry," he asked her as he took a step towards her. He wasn't only hugging her to comfort her, but because he liked her maybe a little bit more than he thought he should. He hadn't liked a girl like this in a long time.

Mitchie backed away. She didn't want his pity. She knew that she must look like a totally loser. Shane Gray was one of the most arrogant, self-centered, and pigheaded person she had ever met. Even now she couldn't help but think that of him. He didn't really care about her, so she didn't want him to act like he did.

"I'm fine," she told him as she started to walk again. He jogged at a slow pace to catch up with her. He hoped he hadn't said anything mean or rude. He had really thought he was over that whole bad-boy stage. That was, in fact, why he was here at Camp Rock. And now he had met Mitchie, and he had helped him through all this. He didn't want her to be mad.

"So, what do you want to know?" Mitchie asked him, hoping that these questions wouldn't be too personal, like why she had written those songs or why she had wanted to fit in so badly.

"Oh, right, um…What's your favorite food?" he asked her. She grinned at him.

"Definitely pasta. Any type of pasta is fine by me. Whether it's manicotti or lasagna or spaghetti or mac 'n' chesse, I don't really care," she told him, still grinning. He grinned back at her.

"I like your mom's Torres burger," he told her. She groaned.

"Of course you do. Everyone loves my mom's 'World Famous Torres Burger'." Her voice was full of sarcasm, but she still smiling. He looked down at her.

"Don't you?" he asked. She thought about it, then nodded slowly.

"I guess I do. I just might not like it because we have it more often than other people do, because we're the Torres family!" she exclaimed, adding a little hop-skip-jump into her walk. Shane laughed.

"Okay…brothers and sisters. You got any?" he asked her.

"Nope. My parents always told me that they waited for the perfect child, and that child was the first one they had," she told him.

"Aww, isn't that cute!" he mimicked as he poked Mitchie in the arm repeatedly. She laughed.

"Yea, I guess it kinda is. I don't know, I never really thought about it," she told him with a shrug.

"Well, you're going to have to think to answer the rest of these questions," he told her. "I may not be so great in the thinking area, but I am very good at making other people think. And I don't have any brothers or sisters either. My parents always told me that they had hoped for an angel the first time, but…they never really got what they hoped for," he told her. She looked at him and stopped. He stopped too. "What?"

"That's kinda mean, don't cha think? I mean, that your parents would say that to you?" she asked him, wondering how he could be so cool with the situation.

Shane shrugged. "It's the truth isn't it? Sometimes the truth hurts," he told her as he kept walking. She ran after him.

"Has it ever hurt you after your parents told you that?" she asked him. He thought for a moment.

"Maybe, I'm not really sure. I always just kinda dismissed it." He was quiet for a moment, then he spoke, knowing that he could tell Mitchie what he really thought. "Yea. I guess it does sometimes."

His voice came out like a smooth, silk ribbon. It came out meaningful. Mitchie knew that it must have hurt to admit it. How could it not hurt? That's practically like your parents implying that they wanted something much better than you.

She sighed and wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug. She didn't know why she had just done that. They had never been this close together before, except when they were singing at Final Jam, but even then they weren't this close together.

Shane looked down at Mitchie as she held onto him. He hugged her back, but he still confused. Maybe she was a little bit more emotional than he thought. He wondered if she'd start crying again. But then it occurred to him. Mitchie was always thinking about others long before she thought of herself. She was just a naturally good person. He smiled as he held her closer; wishing that this moment would last forever.

She smelled good, like vanilla. He stroked her long, straight hair. It was soft and smooth, like satin. He sighed, and so did she. They both laughed nervously as they pulled away from each other. They were silent as they continued walking.

"Sorry, about back there, with the hug. I know that was kinda unexpected, but, I don't know. I guess I'm kinda like the Tanner family on Full House. I just like hugging people." Mitchie inwardly groaned at her words. _Nothing gets lamer than what I just said,_ she thought to herself as she tilted her head back. But when she listened, she could hear Shane laughing. She tilted her head upright and looked over at him. He was laughing hysterically. She was kind of hurt. Her cheeks burned, but soon she started to laugh with him. In a few minutes, they had tears running down their faces and they were laughing so hard that they had to cough.

Finally they wound down a little bit. Mitchie sighed. Shane gave her a little shove.

"What's wrong, superstar? You don't like spending quality time with the one and only Shane Gray?" he asked her. She looked at him and got an evil grin on her face. She shoved him off the side of the road and began to run, laughing the whole way. He stood up and dashed after her. He got her easily. He picked her up, spun her around, and got dizzy. They fell over, Mitchie on top, both laughing all over again.

When she stopped her laughing fit, Mitchie looked down and realized that she was lying right on Shane Gray. Her mind told her to get up off of him, but her body wasn't moving. Shane stopped laughing and looked up at her. His hand gripped her arm, almost as if he were afraid she was going to leave. He looked as deep into her eyes as he could, as if he were trying to find something in them. She didn't look scared, or mad. There was no source of laughter in her eyes. She just stared back at him. She closed her eyes and he wondered what she was doing. He followed suit, but soon heard laughter. The laugh wasn't Mitchie's. He looked over into the bushes and saw a couple of girls with flashlights looking at the two. They quickly ran off as they realized they had been caught red-handed.

Mitchie groaned and got off of him. "Great, more rumors," she mumbled. She looked down at Shane, and held out a hand.

"You coming, superstar? You gotta get up if you wanna ask me more questions," she reminded him with a smile. He grinned back and took Mitchie's hand. He instantly felt a tingly feeling go down his spine. But it was a good tingly.

He asked her more questions, and realized that she was beginning to rub her arms. There weren't many bugs out, but it was a little chilly. He understood that if he was cold, then Mitchie must be freezing. She was in a t-shirt while he had on a long-sleeved shirt _and _a jacket. He took off his jacket as she was answering his latest question. He slipped it onto her. She stopped talking and looked down at the jacket, then up at him.

"What are you doing?" she asked him. He looked her over. This was his favorite jacket. It was black leather all the way from India; it was also the most expensive piece of clothing he owned, and being Shane Gray, that was saying a lot. But it looked good on her. Really good. It hung loosely on her and it wasn't zipped, but just the illusion it gave off as she pulled her hair out from under the jacket and let it fall over her shoulders.

"Wow," he heard himself whisper, his voice full of wonder.

Mitchie looked up at him as he spoke. "What?" she asked.

Shane snapped himself out of it. "Nothing, nothing. That jacket just looks really…good on you," he told her, trying to find the right words without being completely forward. She smiled. God, he loved that smile.

"Thanks," she told him. "Where did you get this jacket? It's nice and warm." She hugged herself to make it that much warmer. His body heat that had been inside the jacket was now spreading through her body. She shivered at the thought.

"Are you still cold?" he joked. She blushed and shook her head. "I got the jacket in India. Everybody knows that. I've had girls try to steal it from me. It cost an enormous amount of money…"

Realizing what he just said, Mitchie stopped hugging herself and started to take off the jacket. If it was so expensive, she really shouldn't be wearing it. It would be ripped and torn within seconds. She was so clumsy.

Shane saw her start to take it off and he held it on her so she couldn't. "No, really, just wear it. I don't want you to catch a cold."

Mitchie felt her body warm up as he touched her. She was surprised at his words. He didn't want her to catch a cold. That was the sweetest thing a guy had ever said to her!

"Please, okay, just keep the jacket on," he begged. He realized that when she took it off, it would smell like her. He told himself never to wash it again, but then realized that her scent would soon fade from his beloved jacket. He hoped that she wouldn't fade from his memory.

She nodded and they continued walking. "Next question?" she told him.

"Oh, right, um…Oh my gosh, I can't believe I forgot to ask you your favorite color! What's your favorite color?" he asked her in excitement.

"Um…I don't know. Maybe…" her words trailed off as she heard a million little voices in her head screaming the word _gray_. Her eyes widened as she tried to think of another color, any color at all. But the only word that kept repeating in her head was gray. The voices were chanting it. _Gray, gray, gray, gray._ She knew why she wanted to say gray. Shane…Gray.

"GRAY!" she found herself shouting. It echoed out over the lake and bounced the word back to them. She groaned as she put her head in her hands. Great job, Mitchie. You've really done it this time.

"Really, why? You seem like the kind of person that would like colors more towards yellow and bright orange," he told her. He was right. She did like those colors. Why couldn't she have just said orange and got it over with instead of saying gray?

"Um…uh…" She was at a loss of words. She truly didn't know what to say. She sighed. "It was just the first color that came to mind."

Shane looked down at her. She seemed kinda upset and…embarrassed. He thought about this in silence for a moment.

_I'm Shane Gray. It's not like she has to…_ That's when it hit him. He was the reason she had said gray!

He looked down at her. She was most definitely embarrassed now.

"Mitchie?" he asked softly. "Do you really like the color gray, or do you like it for the same reason everybody else does? Because it's the 'in' color of the season."

Mitchie giggled as she watched Shane put air quotes around the word 'in'.

"I like it because…because I see it clearly, not because of everyone else," she told him softly. He looked down at her and met her eyes. He smiled at her and she did the same to him.

He leaned down and kissed her, just like he was about to at Final Jam, but didn't because he, Shane Gray, had been afraid.

That night, Shane walked Mitchie up to the cabin that she and her mom shared. He wasn't surprised to find that he was still smiling, and so was she. He watched as her smile faded.

"I guess we'll have to say good-bye tomorrow," she reminded him, and he frowned at the thought. That was very true. But he didn't want to. He didn't want to leave her. He found it impossible that he was feeling this way about a girl, given the circumstances that he knew he was only going to be with her for only one summer.

"I don't want to say good-bye. Saying good-bye is so hard, especially if I were saying it to you," he told her. He felt like such a romantic sap. He wouldn't be surprised if she started blushing and making this into a joke.

But she didn't.

Mitchie wrapped her arms around Shane for the second time that night. This time it felt much less awkward. It just felt right.

"Yea, it is. So why don't we make a pact. How about we make a pact that we'll find ways to stay in touch. Do you think that'd work?" she asked him. He grinned at her.

"I haven't made a pact since I was, like, 5," he told her with a lopsided grin. She smiled back.

"What was it?" she asked.

"I promised her that I'd marry her someday," he told her, actually keeping a straight face. Of course it was a joke.

Mitchie's grin instantly faded. Just the serious look on his face was enough to make her cry. He was being serious. She didn't want to be with someone when she knew that their relationship, if they ever started one in the future, would have to end eventually just because he had made some stupid promise. She turned and started walking up the steps. Shane stopped her.

"No, I'm just kidding. The last pact I made was over the phone with Jason and Nate a couple of weeks ago. I promised that I'd sing with the winner of Final Jam. I thought…I thought that the winner was going to be the girl I heard singing that day. In simpler words, I thought it was going to be you," he told her, trying to send her a message. She smiled slowly and nodded as she blushed softly.

"Okay, so, you have to promise that we'll stay in touch, and that nothing will come between us, not even distance," he told her, holding out his hand. Mitchie looked down at his hand. That was asking a lot. But that was what she wanted. She shook his hand and smiled.

Just as she was about to walk into the cabin, she realized that she was still wearing the jacket. She turned around, only to find him staring after her, as if he had been making sure she got up the steps safely. She smiled as she walked back down the steps and over to him. She sighed as she took off the jacket and held it out to him.

Shane stared at his jacket. It was his favorite thing to wear. It went with everything. But for some reason, he thought that Mitchie deserved it. He shook his head as she shoved it at him.

"You keep it…" he started, but Mitchie cut him off.

"Shane! I can't possibly keep this! You said it yourself that it cost a lot of money," she insisted as she held it out to him. He slowly took it from her hands, and stepped behind her, placing the jacket around her shoulders.

"Every girl needs to indulge herself sometimes. If your mom wasn't working here, and you were paying full price, then that'd probably be the largest amount you've ever spent on a single thing. But you're not going to stop here, Mitchie. You're going to go farther than a camp. You'll wonder what the heck you were ever doing here in the first place, and then you'll come back and look at your memories you formed here and realize…that your time here was probably one of your best times ever." Shane had been reflecting on his own past for a moment there. That was his story.

"Keep the jacket. It's good on you. Just make sure nobody takes it from you," he told her jokingly and she smiled and nodded. He gave her a quick kiss, but somehow wanted just a little more. He gave her another one that lasted longer, and he said good-night.

He'd say good-night to Mitchie Torres, but he was never going to say goodbye.

_So what'd you think? It was my first official Camp Rock fanfic. Yay! Please review!_

_By the way, does anyone know a better place to put Jonas Brother fics than in the Camp Rock archive? If you do, please let me know!_


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